Leah's oldest son Reuben one day finds in the field and brings home. "Is it a small matter," responds Leah, "that you has taken my husband? and wouldest you take away my son's mandrakes also?"

Rachel proposes a deal: Jacob "shall lie with you tonight," she tells Leah, if Leah will give Rachel the mandrakes. Leah hands over the mandrakes. That evening she eagerly goes to meet Jacob--heading home from another day's work for Laban--with the news: "you must come in into me." He has been "hired," Leah tells him, with the mandrakes.

It proves to be a good deal for both sisters. Leah proceeds to bear three more sons and a daughter, while Rachel also conceives and bears a son, God at last having "opened her womb." She names the son Joseph ("he adds"), for God, says Rachel, "shall add to me another son." But after Jacob has taken his wives and children home to Canaan, Rachel dies giving birth to her second son. She lives long enough to name him Benoni ("son of my sorrow"), a name that Jacob changes to Benjamin.